


My Knight, No Shining Armour

by rutherfords (seblaiens)



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Humor, Mages and Templars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-03-01
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10027748
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seblaiens/pseuds/rutherfords
Summary: Trevelyan used to have a crush on a Templar in the Ostwick Circle. It's rather funny Cullen used to be infatuated with a mage in his own Circle, as well.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a conversation you can have with Josephine where Trevelyan admits to having a crush on a Templar while being in the Circle in Ostwick. Also on tumblr: morristair.tumblr.com

Evelyn’s skin is slightly sweaty, sticking against Cullen’s as she turns in his arms. The bed in her quarters is warm and big, several pillows and blankets laid upon the soft mattress. The room smells of sex, the doors to the balcony closed to keep in the warmth a small furnace in one of the corners of the room emits. She could have used her magic to warm up the room, but she didn’t want to exhaust herself by using her magic when Cullen was sharing her bed with her. Evelyn’s nose is pressed against his body, breathing in his scent, a mixture of sweat and the natural smell of his skin. She’s always found that Templars smelled better to her than her fellow mages in the Circle, but she’s never been able to pinpoint what it is exactly - Dorian’s hypothesis is that it’s the lyrium in their blood, something meant to keep the mages in check somehow also drawing them to the Templars. 

 

“Why are you smelling me?”

 

Evelyn opens her eyes, smiling a little embarrassed and pressing her face further into Cullen’s side. She’s not sure if she should admit it to him - he’s struggling with lyrium enough as it is, she doesn’t need to burden him with the fact that, even after months of abstaining, she could still smell it on him. 

 

“I was just thinking about your little crush on the Hero of Ferelden again,” she says instead, knowing fully well that Cullen would stammer and try to play it down again. Evelyn had heard enough gossip about Cullen’s time in the Fereldan Circle, and those stories were easier to swallow than what had happened in Kirkwall. A safer topic of conversation, as long as she spoke of the time before the Blight. 

 

Cullen groans, but his chuckle confirms that he’s not bothered by her bringing it up again. He’d told her himself after all - if he felt uncomfortable talking about it, he wouldn’t have brought it up the first time she had asked about Solona Amell. 

 

“I can’t believe you never told her,” Evelyn says, turning from her side onto her stomach, resting her head on her hands. She can look at Cullen like that, let her eyes wander over what little of his body isn’t covered by a heavy duvet. The top of his chest, his neck, and his head, turned slightly into the pillow, a smile on his lips. His eyes are closed, and he blindly reaches out for her to stroke over her side and back. He brushes her hair aside as his fingers trail up to her neck, gently brushing over the sensitive spots on her throat he knows so well, the ones he was kissing and licking just half an hour ago. Evelyn licks over her lips when she remembers his tongue and lips on her body.

 

“She was one of my charges; I would have been kicked out of the Order faster than I could have said ‘ _ fraternization _ .’” 

 

“I’ve heard of Templars having relationships with mages in the Circle before,” Evelyn counters. “I’ve even heard about it happening in the Fereldan Circle and I found a letter on a dead soldier in the Hinterlands, talking about his mage lover. She’s here now, didn’t have anywhere to go, after.”

 

“Well,” Cullen sighs, finally opening his eyes and looking at her, “if there ever truly have been mage-Templar lovers while the Circles were still standing, they knew to keep it from the Order.” 

 

“Hm,” Evelyn hums, scooting closer to Cullen, squishing one leg between his, careful not press down her knee too harshly. “There were none such relationships in Ostwick either, but it was a tiny Circle, barely more than thirty mages.”

 

Cullen stays quiet, still continuing to softly stroke over Evelyn’s back and sides, making her sigh in contemptment. She loves lying with him after they have sex at night, knowing that they wouldn’t have to get back up again until the next morning. It’s nice, not being interrupted and being allowed to just be lazy for a few hours. 

 

She’s never had that in the Circle either - the privacy to do something like this. She had shared her room with another girl around her age, and while her roommate had some dalliances with other mages, Evelyn herself never had had sex in the Circle - they all felt too much like family to her to feel comfortable sharing her bed with anyone there. Only when she left on the weekends to visit her parents did she indulge - and even then chances were slim her family left her alone long enough for Evelyn to have some fun with someone she met in the city. She wonders how Cullen had done it during his Templar training, but then she remembers how awkward he had said he’d been around Amell. She guesses he hadn’t lost his virginity until after taking his vigil.

 

She’s never thought about the Templar side of things before, and she wonders if they had taken each other’s edge off just like the mages. 

 

“You know, I fancied one of the Templars while in the Ostwick Circle.”

 

“You did?” Cullen asks, raising his eyebrows as Evelyn leans down to kiss his shoulder. “And what did  _ you _ do about it?”

 

“Nothing,” Evelyn admits, kissing her way from his chest over his throat until she reaches his lips. “I was way too shy to say anything.” 

 

“You? Shy?” Cullen laughs, putting his hands on her hips and pulling her closer against his body. “I can hardly believe it.”

 

“Oh, shut it,” Evelyn grumbles, kissing the smug expression off his face. It’s not the first time she had admitted her crush to someone - most recently to Josephine, who had almost looked disappointed when Evelyn had told that she and her Templar had never gotten together - but it’s still a nerve-wracking thing to tell someone else. While some mages in the Circle had teased her about her love-sick staring any time Ser Richard had walked into the room, she had never outright admitted to being interested. She had had friends in the Circle, but she still felt like a crush on a Templar was something she should keep her mouth shut about.

 

“He was a lot older than me as well. I don’t think something would have happened even if I had told him,” Evelyn muses. Ser Richard had been in his late twenties when he had been transferred from Wycome, and Evelyn had barely been eighteen, freshly out of her Harrowing. It was easy to write off as a harmless crush now, but at the time it had felt so real. It’s a little embarrassing to think back on how many sleepless nights she had spent longing for Ser Richard, imagining telling him how she felt before he would sweep her off her feet and kiss her breathless. Sometimes those trains of thought would lead to her carefully listening to her roommates breathing before deciding if she could touch herself without getting caught.

 

“...I’m a few years older than you as well,” Cullen mentions, shrugging. “I don’t think _ that  _ would have been the reason to reject you.”

 

“Would you reject me?” Evelyn asks, purely hypothetically. “If we were at the Ostwick Circle right now and I would tell you that I loved you, would start a relationship with me?”

 

Cullen sighs, closing his eyes. He’s quiet for a while, and Evelyn doesn’t know if he’s thinking or avoiding the question - did she overstep some boundary of their relationship by reminding him what their position would be hadn’t the rebellion started?

 

“If the things in Ferelden and Kirkwall had never happened?” Cullen says just as Evelyn is about to tell him to forget about the question. “And assuming I was older and a little more…  _ experienced _ than I had been when I was at the Circle in Ferelden? I probably wouldn’t.”

 

“You wouldn’t?” Evelyn asks, genuinely surprised. She purses her lips, imagining how Cullen and her would handle a secret relationship that could have grave consequences for both of them if they were to be found out. Cullen could probably keep his mouth shut about it, but he’d look at ther with those eyes and that smile and the whole Circle would know in less than a week. She herself could probably keep the charade up for a few days longer before inevitably saying something wrong and raising suspicion. 

 

“Does that surprise you?”

 

“You were so… _ dutiful, _ from what I’ve heard,” Evelyn says, still not sure how to talk about Cullen’s past in the Order. She doesn’t like thinking of him as a cruel man - and she’s heard some of the mages describe him as such, the ones that had been in Kirkwall during the rebellion, who had seen first hand the city’s destruction under Knight-Commander Meredith’s hand. But then there were other voices, people who praised Cullen’s work after he had taken over Meredith’s job, trying to rebuild Kirkwall after years of tense relationships between the Templars, the mages, and the citizens. Those spoke of a merciful man who gave himself to his job with empathy and benevolence. 

 

“I was also head of heels in love with Solona,” Cullen chuckles, turning them around so Evelyn was pressed into the mattress with Cullen above her, his legs between hers and his arms holding himself above her. “I would have given in eventually.”

 

“Don’t talk about being in love with other women while you’re in bed with me,” Evelyn pouts up at Cullen, crossing her arms in front of her chest. She was joking, but it wasn’t like she  _ enjoyed _ hearing Cullen talk about how infatuated he had been with Amell, and how he would have been with her had he had the chance. 

 

“Oh?” Cullen raises his brows. “You can bring it up but you don’t like me talking about it?”

 

Evelyn rolls her eyes, but she has to laugh quietly at herself. “Do you want me to talk about how often I daydreamed about pulling my Templar into a dark corner and-”

 

“ _ Your _ Templar? Do you think he knows the mighty Inquisitor is the same girl that swooned whenever he looked in her direction?” Cullen exclaims, laughing himself.

 

“If you mock me further, Cullen, I swear to the Maker I will find and date him instead.”

 

“Oh, just wait until the Hero of Ferelden comes back from her journey to the west. She’ll fall into my arms and-”

 

Evelyn pushes Cullen off her, getting out of bed and pulling on one of her robes, crossing her arms and scowling at Cullen, who was still lying on the bed, smirking up at her. It melts her heart, seeming him this relaxed, the duvet down to just above his bellybutton and his hair a mess of curls from washing them a few hours ago. He looks so much younger when he’s like this, and she can almost forget about how much hardship this man had endured at the hands of mages before landing in her bed. She briefly wonders if in the future they’ll be looked at as an example - a mage and Templar, both with their reasons to hate each other, finding love between them neither had thought possible. 

 

Considering she spent so much time around Varric, it was really only a question of time before a book about it would be published.

 

“Last rumour I heard was that the Hero had sworn off men after the love of her life became king and got married to another woman,” Evelyn teases, but her heart still sank as it did the first time she had overheard it. Sometimes she thinks about her relationship with Cullen and draws parallels between King Alistair and Solona Amell she’d rather forget about - but at least she’s not next in line for anything in Ostwick.

 

Cullen’s smile disappears slowly, lines around his mouth showing his true age. “I heard she stayed around as his mistress for quite a while,” Cullen says solemnly, his heart clearly aching for the woman he was once infatuated with. “I do not envy them.”

 

Evelyn nods before turning away from the bed, walking over to the furnace and stacking a few more logs of wood inside. She hears Cullen get up from bed as well, startling when he wraps his arms around her from behind.

 

“How would they even do it, in the Circle, I mean?” Cullen asks, bewildered. “I mean, I’ve walked in on my fair share of mages being indecent together, but that’s because none of them in Ferelden actually  _ cared _ to hide what they were doing. Doing it in a dark corner, fast and hard seems so… not worth it for the amount of danger involved.”

 

Evelyn laughs, glad Cullen’s changing the subject.

 

“I don’t know. Maybe I should ask the mages here, see if any of them have any…  _ experiences _ .”

 

“Now  _ that _ would be something to gossip about. Maybe they’ll even stop talking their mouths fussy about us for more than ten minutes.”

  
“Don’t give them that much credit.”


End file.
